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At this week’s National Farmers Union Convention in Minneapolis USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack shared his thoughts on what needs to happen with GMO labeling.

He said that up until now — there have been two purposes to food labels — nutritional information and warning. GMO does not fit into either of those categories. He says it is important not to send the wrong message about the safety of the product while respecting the consumers’ right to know. He suggests

Vilsack: “And I think what Congress should consider, is a mandatory process — not something where you wanna do it or can think about doing it — we ought to just basically say, ‘This is the way it’s gotta be.’ So we don’t have 50 different states and don’t have 1000 of different companies making decisions for themselves. Creating the option for companies that processing food to use one of a variety of ways of providing this information — a 1-800 number, a website or a smart label. Give companies enough time to be able to educate consumers about the fact that this labeling system is going into effect. So that they are well-aware of how to access this information if they happen to be consumers that are interested in that information. And that they find it easy and available to do so. Then at the end of that time period, basically provide it and within that labeling provide the information of whether a particular product includes a GMO or not. ”